Guardian Writer Dave Hill On Politics, People & Goings On

May 13, 2008

The Mayoral Message

From the Mayor's media centre:

"At the start of Boris’s second week he has been able to deliver two more election promises – making London greener and cutting the Mayor’s publicity budget. The planting of 10,000 street trees will improve the residential streets that need them most with the planting programme directed at deprived areas that often have no trees at all. Had Ken Livingstone been re-elected, Londoners would have spent around £2.9 million this year on the Mayor’s personal newspaper. By using some of the money saved from The Londoner – around £1 million per year – London’s most deprived areas will see an extra 10,000 new trees by 2012."

Is it me or these press releases becoming more adulatory? More political even?

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I noticed that, too. Presumably he's saving money on distributing self-praise to all parts of London via the GLA newspaper and instead putting the auto-adulation into free-to-publish online news releases which may directly reach a few online households in his more affluent, connected target areas but will also get distributed to all his media friends, who he expects (probably accurately) will regurgitate the praise in their 'independent' organs.

Why spend money distributing propaganda yourself when you've got others to do it for you, as someone once asked:

It's that efficiency we heard so much about. Use less press officers, but use them wisely ;)

I have still had no response from them on the tree scheme. I have been trying to find out whether these 10,000 'new trees' are actually new i.e in addition to the million trees that Ken Livingstone committed himself to.

You are being a little bit harsh. It's good to be keen and believe in your own measures, what are they supposed to say "This is a bit of a half baked scheme and we don't have much faith in it, but thought we would push it out anyway because we can't think of anything better?"

I like the bouncy, upbeat approach, it echoes the brio and panache of the new Mayor and he might as well be happy now, poor devil, before his detractors really start kicking him in the nuts!

Adam, you say that Ken had committed himself to building 1 million trees. I see no evidence at all for this. The link you posted showed that Ken "called" for 1 million trees to be planted. That's not the same as pledging to directly fund and implement the planting of 1 million trees.

Diamond Geezer says it's about one tree per borough per week. Don't forget, the trees are not being evenly distributed across London. They will be targetted at areas where currently there is a shortage of trees.

"The previous administration did fund some tree planting but did not focus on street trees in particular - the crucial difference. Furthermore, the Mayor actively supports programmes that will enhance and protect London’s open spaces, including the Trees for Cities Million Trees Campaign which aims to plant one million trees in the capital by 2012."

This also relates to another query i made about the East London Green Grid. Boris has so far not given explicit support to the green grid which is all about 'off street' green spaces and trees. This was a pet project of Ken and the greens and is of interest to me as it is in my area of London. It is possible that these 10,000 trees may be a cover for the dropping of the many more trees that would be planted for the Green grid. See Jenny Jones: